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Born in Russia, he was sent to live with an aunt in California at age seven in 1929. He lived there for nine years, English becoming his natural equal language. He returned to Russia in 1938 and immediately joined the KOMSOMOL. After fighting in World War II, he was accepted by the NKVD and was trained as a spy, and then sent to Canada in 1954 with a fake passport and the alias of Gordon Lonsdale. A year later he arrived in London in the guise of a successful Canadian businessman. Lonsdale opened up substantial bank accounts and rented a luxury apartment in Regent's Park. He made friends easily and talked of opening up an importing firm to distribute amusement games in Europe. He was regularly seen at London's best night-clubs with an attractive woman on his arm.
Lonsdale (Molody) was by nature sexist, anti-Semitic and a philanderer, taking a large number of mistresses. Lonsdale had established a believably front as a Canadian Businessman and with the Krogers acting as his communications and technical agents, set about building an effective spy network at the top-secret underwater weapons research establishment at the Portland naval base in Dorset. Two of the other known members would be Harry Houghton and his mistress Ethel Gee.
Eventually MI5 caught up with the Houghton, Gee and Lonsdale at a meeting, The Krogers were also arrested and all five were placed on trial, now known as the Portland Spy Case. Convicted, and sent to prison. Lonsdale was to receive a 25-year term. However, Lonsdale had in fact run more than one major espionage network in Britain and MI5 never discovered the full extent of the damage done to western security. It is believed that the Soviets obtained considerable secret information on chemical and biological weapons from within the Microbiological Research Establishment at Porton Down from another of Lonsdale networks. The Soviet defector Oleg Gordievsky certainly believes that Lonsdale's importance as a master spy has not been fully recognized in Britain.
The spymaster served less than four years in prison, released in 1964 when he was exchanged for Greville Wynn an Englishman accused of spying in Russia in the Penkovsky. Hailed as a hero upon his return to Moscow, Lonsdale received two medals, the Red Star and the Red Banner. He then wrote his memoirs, with the help of British defector Philby, publishing this fanciful tale under the title 'Spy' a specious, lying document that was made into a specious, lying film by the Soviets. In October 1970, Lonsdale collapsed in a small garden behind his Moscow apartment, dying of a heart attack as he was picking mushrooms, but brought on by a prolonged drinking bout. |
